


Spunk

by pretentiousasshole



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alistair Has Issues, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Everyone Has Issues, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Mentions of Rape, tabris has issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 07:40:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14786273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pretentiousasshole/pseuds/pretentiousasshole
Summary: Scraped knees, that's her childhood. She never really grows out of them.





	Spunk

Scraped knees, that’s her childhood. Nell is scraped knees after climbing from store windows and weeds that grow between the cobbles in the alienage streets. By the time she is nine, she is an expert at petty thievery and even ran through twenty shops before her father found out and forbade her from going into the shem market ever again.

  
By the time she is eleven, her mother teachers her the art of the blade and how to cut swiftly without making a lot of blood. Father disapproves, but Nell revels in it. She’s never been one for violence but knives make everything easy. Easy and quick.

  
By the time she is thirteen, her mother is killed by shems wielding knives similar to her own. She weeps bitter tears and promises never to touch another weapon. But that is easier said than done. She grows, like a spindly vine, into a teenager who is quick to blows. The local crime lord likes her spunk and she’s given an ultimatum: join or die.

  
By the time she is fifteen, she is running with the gangs, pulling out hefty raids and nicking purses all hidden from her father’s eye. She receives her first contract when she is sixteen. Kill a local merchant, it says, whose crime was watering down the mead. She does it. Easy and quick.

 

 

Soris is afraid of her. She’s not sure if he knows how they’re able to afford a nice house with a wood stove and enough food during the winter, but she guesses he’s gleaning on.

  
One night, she sneaks through the back window, drenched in blood. No one should be awake at this hour, she is sure, but there he is, sitting on his cot and looking up at the ceiling. They briefly lock eyes and Soris stares at her as if she is covered in blood. Oh, wait. Shit. She puts a finger to her lips and changes quickly. Soris doesn’t confront her about it the next morning.

  
Shianni, however, is harder to decipher. Sometimes she wakes up with her blades cleaned of blood or a bottle of whiskey next to her bed after a long night running. It is only after those nights that she realizes she loves Shianni with every fiber of her being.

 

 

They rape Shianni and they kill Nelaros. She takes the ring off of Nelaros’ body and puts it on. It’s the least she can do. If they had married, would she have stopped running? Would she have settled down, raised children, taught them how to fight? No, it was impossible. She would not repeat the mistakes of her mother, teaching her children how to fight and giving them up to violence. She is a part of the world that killed her mother. There is no going back now. When she finds Shianni, she murders her rapists. The blood rushes through her ears and for the first time, she finds herself enjoying the rush of battle. The pain is exhilarating and it’s the only thing she can feel.

 

 

They leave for Ostagar. Nell finds herself hating the shem Warden, Duncan, who saved her life. She feels him watching her, something strange in his eyes, something she has never seen from a shem and she wants to bite and snarl at him. She knows that he’s been carrying the extra packs and letting her sleep past dawn even though they need to get to Ostagar to meet the darkspawn army. He pities her and her hatred for him grows even more. It bites deep inside of her and it roots itself in her fear of the unknown, of the shems. Yet, if there is anything that her years in the Alienage has taught her, it is how to lie. When she meets the Ferelden King, she is quiet and polite, the perfect elven servant. The perfect elven wench. She tries her best to bite down the venom in her voice when he asks her about the Alienage, about her past.

  
_I killed an arl’s son for raping my friend, my cousin_ , she wants to say. But instead she shrugs and tells the King that nothing of importance happened to her. It is true. Shianni is the one who was violated.

  
She enters Ostagar and sees the armies with the elven servants and the templars with their captive mages. She is sure that she is no longer a person, only a husk filled with hate.

* * *

Alistair quirks a smile at her. Jory and Daveth are trudging up ahead, leaving him and Nell alone.

  
“So,” his voice cracks and heat rushes to his cheeks. It’s not like he’s smitten, really, he’s not. But she’s the only lady here and an elf to boot and naturally the most interesting recruit. Nell rolls her eyes. “I see you’re from Denerim. Y’know, I met the Arl of Denerim once. Big bloke, has shoulders the size of shovels? You ever seen him? Mind you, it’s been almost ten years since we last spoke but I bet I could point him out in a crowd. It’s a pretty city. I’ve only been there once but it was nice.”

  
“Oh?” she smirks up at him. “Ever been to the Alienage?”

  
His brow furrows. Why would he ever go to the Alienage? “Uh, no, actually. I guess my tour guide decided to skip that part of town.”

  
She laughs quietly to herself and Alistair feels a shiver go down his spine. “That makes sense. They wanted you to think well of the city, after all. No point in showing you what you don’t need.”

  
Before he can respond to her dour assessment, he feels a tingle on the back of his neck and knows that there are darkspawn nearby. He unsheathes his sword and gives a quick nod to Tabris, who sprints ahead to warn Jory and Daveth.

  
He feels relief in the pit of his stomach. Their conversation will have to wait. For the first time, he is grateful that there are darkspawn nearby.

 

 

When he wakes, something is seriously wrong. His head is woozy and everything aches but he’s sure he’s not missing a limb or anything. But it smells of damp earth and moss here, different than the stony smell of Ostagar. Where is he? Where’s Tabris? Where’s--

  
“You wake.” It is the witch they encountered in the Wilds, Morrigan. She stirs a pot on the small hearth. They’re in a small cabin. “Mother will be pleased.”

  
“What happened?” he rasps. “Is this-”

  
“Your friends at Ostagar, the Grey Wardens, the King, are all dead,” the witch says like it’s nothing and Alistair feels the world crash down upon him. “‘Tis a shame, they were betrayed by the one you call Loghain. He never returned the call. You would be dead as well if mother had not rescued you from that tower.”

  
“Dead?” he whispers. “Dead?”

  
“Are you deaf? Yes, they are dead, save for you and your friend here. Darkspawn overran those at Ostagar,” she says in annoyance. “Now can I stop repeating myself or are you going to continue to stare on like an idiot?”

  
He tries to pull himself up, to move, but he falls back on his elbows. It can’t be true, none of this can be true. He’s never been in the Fade before but this is all probably a dream. It can’t be true. Duncan can’t be dead.

  
“Lie down,” the witch orders but he shakes his head and the world swirls around him. The witch sighs. “You lost a lot of blood.”

  
“Please,” he begs. “Please, this can’t be true… The Wardens… Duncan couldn’t have...”

  
“Spare me your grief,” she snaps. He feels the hot shame of tears upon his cheeks but he cannot stop himself. The witch’s lips twitch in exasperation. “‘Tis not only you that remain. Your friend, the elf, she survives.”

  
_Tabris_.

  
His stomach drops like a ton of bricks. Tabris is alive.

  
The witch motions to his right and he looks over to see Tabris lying on the other side of the large bed they were placed on. His heart swells with relief when he sees her, sees her breathing. She has been stripped of her armor and bundled up in blankets, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. He reaches over to touch her shoulder to make sure this isn’t some cruel illusion set by the witch. It’s not. She’s real and she’s alive.

  
“I-is she going to be alright?” he asks the witch and she shrugs.

  
“Her wounds are more severe than yours,” she says. “But mother suspects that she will regain herself and be upright within a few days.” She ladles some broth into a bowl and hands it to him. “Eat,” she orders.

  
He realizes that he’s starving and mutters a quick ‘thank you’ before slurping down all of the broth. It burns his throat but it’s delicious and he can’t remember the last time he’s had something so tasty.

  
Morrigan takes the empty bowl from his his hands and sets it aside. “Now that you have… devoured your meal, you must rest, as per mother’s orders.”

  
“But what about-”

  
“The darkspawn?” she chuckles darkly. “Oh, I suspect you’ll deal with them soon enough. Sleep while you have the chance.”

  
“I meant Loghain,” he hisses. The name brings venom to his tongue. “Have you heard any word about him?”

  
“I do not dither about trying to glean useless information from old men in taverns,” she sniffs. “I do not know anything about your ‘Loghain’, save for what mother has relayed to me. If you want information on him, ‘tis she the one who you must speak to.”

  
“Where is she? I-I need to see her, to ask-” He struggles beneath the blankets but he’s so weak and shaky that he collapses back on to the bed.

  
“She is out but if you continue to writhe around like that, you’ll reopen your wounds and die before she is back. Now sleep, Templar,” she orders and pushes him firmly back down onto the bed. He’s too feeble to fight back and once his head hits the pillow, the world woozes around faster and he has to shut his eyes. His chest is heavy when he breathes and he’s not certain if it’s his wounds or the terrible ache of grief that squeezes his lungs so, but each breath is a sob.

  
He fades in and out of consciousness until a hand touches his shoulder and he flinches. A voice, the voice of an older woman whispers something in a language he can’t understand and before he knows it, he’s slipping into darkness and is fast asleep.

* * *

 

Alistair sits alone by the campfire. She doesn’t know how to approach him, let alone if she even should. She remembers how she was after leaving Denerim, how she could barely be with others without breaking apart into a million pieces. Now, she knots herself together a flimsy mask of aloofness to cover the pain and anger she feels beneath.

  
But she thinks of the kindness shown to her by Duncan, even though she hated him at the time, mistaking his care for pity and striking out like a wounded animal. He had tried to comfort her even though he knew what she’d done. It was the first time she had been shown kindness by a shem. But now he is dead and she is here with Alistair, stumbling around in the midst of the Blight. She sighs, regret aching into her heart.

  
“Alistair?”

  
He starts when she says his name. “Tabris. I… I didn’t see you there.”

  
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” she says and sits down beside him. She pauses and feels clumsy, that she allows it in this moment together. “I-I, um, just wanted to see if you wanted to talk… About Ostagar, I mean.”

  
“Oh.” His mouth presses into a thin line and she fears that he’s angry at her, that she’s messed this up already, that he thinks her attempt at kindness is pity, that--

  
He sighs. “Am I that obvious? Maker, I’m such a fool. Look, you really don’t need to worry about me, I’m just being dramatic.”

  
“I don’t think you’re being dramatic,” she says quietly. “I know how much Duncan meant to you.”

  
He takes a moment to steady himself before speaking. “He rescued me, you know. I was going to become a templar, even though I was shoddy at it. I would have wasted away in a Chantry if it wasn’t for him. Even though he wasn’t my father, he… I guess I can’t believe he’s just gone.”

  
“I’m sorry,” she says, not knowing if that’s even the right thing to say.

  
“I wish there was some way to repay him, to honor his memory.”

  
“Fighting the Blight?” she offers but he laughs darkly.

  
“If we’re even doing that. Sometimes it feels like… like I’m just letting him down, you know?”

  
Her mother flashes before her eyes, all dark skin and red hair, eyes silver like the knives. “I know.”

  
They sit in silence for a while.

  
“Thanks for talking with me, Tabris.”

  
“You can call me, Nell, you know.”

  
“Oh. Thanks… Nell.”


End file.
